welcome to Orwell's world

The most frightening thing about the way the world has changed since the late 90s is not just how quickly it has happened but how mysteriously. Countries like Britain and Australia seemed to be perfectly normal fairly civilised countries. Now Britain is a totalitarian dystopia and Australia is well on the way to being one.

There was no violent revolution. No overthrow of the government. No military coup. But the results have been as dramatic as the changes that occurred in the past when the communists or the fascists took power.

Prime ministers have come and gone. Elections have been held. Such events no longer seem to have any significance. You cannot point to any of those prime ministers and say, “it was all his fault.” Under each new prime minister both countries have lurched further in the direction of totalitarianism. Whether Labour or the Tories have been in power, or in the case of Australia Labor or the LNP, has made no difference whatsoever. The process of creeping totalitarianism has continued, slowly but inexorably. It’s clear that elections no longer matter at all.

It’s clear that whoever is in charge it’s not our politicians and it’s not our elected governments. You really don’t need to be a crazed conspiracy theorist to have noticed that.

Liberalism has been abolished. The individual has never been less important, and has never had fewer rights. What matters is the state and the corporation. The individual exists to serve the state and the corporation.

Not only has the old liberal idea that people should by and large be allowed to make their own decisions been overturned. Today the individual does not even have the right to decide for himself what he can say, or even what he can think.

We now live in Orwell’s world. As in any totalitarian society social order is maintained by persuading the citizens to police themselves. We do this all the time. We constantly self-censor. You might not think that you do this, but we all do. If we meet a stranger we are very careful to avoid expressing opinions on controversial subjects. We are very careful in our choice of words. This is a key sign of a totalitarian society.

Superficially it appears that public opinion has been strongly in favour of the imposition of the new totalitarianism. Here we need to be just a little sceptical. Public opinion is what the public opinion pollsters tell us public opinion is. How many people these days actually respond to public opinion polls? How many people are prepared to give honest answers to polling questions? It’s likely that public opinion is much less favourable to the new totalitarianism than it appears to be, but what the public thinks no longer matters. What individuals think no longer matters. The state and large private corporations control public opinion. They tell us what our opinions are.

If we stubbornly insist on disagreeing with either the state or with the private corporations who rule society in conjunction with the state, our opinions are ignored. If we continue to be stubborn we are silenced. Dissent is not permitted. Individuals do not have the right to act for themselves, speak for themselves or think for themselves. If you try it on the internet you’ll be banned from social media, or (more likely) you will simply be shadow-banned. You’ll be silenced and you won’t even know it’s happened. In Britain you’ll probably be arrested.

And you don’t have to break any actual laws, because social order is now maintained by the state and by corporations to whom the law and legal rights are irrelevant. If you dissent in any way, even in a way that is technically quite legal, you will be silenced.

Liberalism didn’t fail. It was overthrown by a new ideology which for want of a better term we can call neo-fascism. Nothing matters but the state and the corporation. The individual is irrelevant. Individualism is now an anti-social act that will get you into deep trouble. We learn to obey the state and to obey its corporate partners.

1984 is already here but we pretend it isn’t that bad because the reality is too painful to face.